Site icon YateBTS – LTE & GSM mobile network components for MNO & MVNO

FAQ – Frequently asked questions

Answers to frequently asked questions about YateBTS and our RAN and Core Network products.

Do you have PCRF?

We have PCEF component in our solutions. PCRF is on the billing side. Nevertheless, we have two billing partners that we are working with (Aradial and Porta One) and can introduce you to.

Simplified NFV architecture

Supported

Use of Commodity Hardware (Dell, Hp, IBM etc. servers)

Supported

Flexible Hypervisor usage ( Vmware, KVM, Citrix etc.)

Supported

Notes: Virtualization / hypervisor needs to be configured for performance and tested

Compatible with small cell eNBs.

Supported

Probes/Analytics for high traffic & congestion management

Supported

Notes: Performance counters, congestion control

EMS for network nodes management (configuration & Fault)

Supported

Tools for KPI metrics measurement & Performance reporting

Supported

Notes: Zabbix server

Initial 100k concurrent subscribers scalable upwards.

Supported

Notes: 5 instances required for 100k EPS connections + IMS

WAG/Wifi/Wifi offload solution

Partially supported

Notes: WiFi RADIUS authentication by EAP-SIM, EAP-AKA. SIM authenticated ePDG. No VoWiFi support

3GPP Release 13 compatible

Supported

UL & DL AMBR enforcement

Partially supported

Notes: UL AMBR is enforced by ENB

Usage Monitoring at PCC rule level

Supported

IMSI level troubleshooting - Debug

Partially supported

Notes: Individual IMSI/MSISDN tracing only in HSS

3GPP compliant interfaces i.e. Gx, Gy, Sy, S11, S6a, S1,S5/S8S10,Rx,Sgi etc. and interface debugging

Partially supported

Notes: Only Gx, Gy, S6a, S1, S5/S8, SGi RADIUS for offline charging

Policing GBR Dedicated Bearers

Supported

Notes: GBR maximum limits configurable per AP

Volume based Reauthorisation request support

Supported

Time and Volume based quota exhaustion

Supported

Traffic Class to QCI mapping

Supported

Notes: Each QCI is mapped to a DSCP

Multiple APN Connection

Supported

Notes: Multiple APNs and aliases are supported

PGW Initiated Bearer modification with/without bearer qos update

Supported

Flexible routingby SCCP-level parameters

Supported

Special TT (-s) for outgoing traffic

Supported

Flexible routes’ redundancy

Supported

E1/LSL

Partially supported

Notes: via Sangoma card or external M2UA gateway

E1/HSL

Partially supported

Notes: via external M2UA gateway

SIGRAN/M2UA

Supported

SIGRAN/M2PA

Supported

SIGRAN/M3UA

Supported

MTP L3 Routing based on OPC, DPC,NI and service indicator

Partially supported

Notes: MTP routes by DPC only

SCCP Routing based on Calling part, Called party, TT and NAI

Supported

SCCP maniputing Calling party replacemet, Called party Replacement, TT replacement in calling pary and called party address, NAI replacement, MTP header manipulating depend on SCCP address,routing selection by SCCP parameters, redundancy route selection in case of main route unavailability

Supported

Notes: no direct manipulation of MTP header is supported, can SCCP route between MTP domains, can SCCP route between ITU and ANSI networks

MNP(mobile number portability)

Supported

Notes: via TS 23.066 or customer provided database or API

Support MAP V1,2,3

Supported

Support CAMEL2,3

Supported

Diameter S6

Supported

DIAMETER over SCTP

Supported

SIP

Supported

AUC

Supported

COMP128 V2

Supported

COMP128 V3

Supported

allPacketOrientedServicesBarred

Supported

RoamerAccessToHPLMN-AP-Barred

Supported

RoamerAccessToVPLMN-AP-Barred

Supported

RoamingOutsidePLMNOG-CallsBarred

Supported

Barring Outgoing Calls (BAOC)

Supported

Barring of Outgoing International Calls (BOIC)

Supported

Barring of Incoming Calls except from Home Country (BOIC ex HC)

Supported

Barring of All Incoming Calls (BAIC)

Supported

Barring of Incoming Calls while roaming (BIC Roam)

Supported

CLIP

Supported

CLIR

Supported

CFU

Supported

CFNR

Supported

CFB

Supported

Call Waiting

Supported

Hold

Supported

Multi PTY

Supported

Provisioning Gateway for managing Subscriber databaes in HLR

Supported

Notes: HSS/HLR provides direct JSON API access

RADIUS and GPRS Transparent Tunneling Protocol (GTTP) accounting

Supported

Several PDP Contexts (Primary/Secondary) and EPS Bearers (Default/Dedicated) activation

Supported

QoS support (maximum bandwidth limitation for the PDP);

Supported

QCI support

Supported

RADIUS authentication and authorization on AAA server;

Supported

Policy Control and Charging (PCC) architecture support in accordance with 3GPP TS 23.203 specification

Supported

GTP v1 and v2 support

Supported

Intra and Inter RAT handover procedures support in accordance with the 3GPP TS 23.401 specification

Supported

IP address allocation by existing DHCP server or AAA server via RADIUS protocol

Supported

MAP - TS 29.002

Supported

TCAP - ITU Q.773

Supported

SCCP - ITU Q.711-714

Supported

M3UA - RFC 4666

Supported

SCTP (CRC) - RFC 4960

Supported

Diameter - RFC 6733, RFC 6737, RFC 5516

Supported

MAP C-SS7 interface (HLR - MSC) - MAP SMS information, status, inform, alert

Supported

TS 23.228, TS 29.229 Diameter Cx-Diameter interface (HSS - CSCF) - Authentication, registration, deregistration, location query, user profile update

Supported

MAP D-SS7 interface (HLR - VLR) - MAP Attach/Location Update/Purge/Roaming Number

Supported

MAP Gc-SS7 interface (HLR - GGSN) - Routing information, MS Reachable

Supported

MAP Gr-SS7 interface (HLR - SGSN) - Attach/Location Update

Supported

TS 29.272 Diameter S6a interface (HSS - MME)

Supported

TS 29.272 Diameter S6d interface (HSS - SGSN)

Supported

Build in user Management

Supported

Users > 50.000

Supported

Bulk Subscriber Add / Remove (.csv or command line)

Supported

ODB

Supported

Supplementary Services

Supported

Hardware included (turnkey)

Supported

Notes: Optional

High available

Supported

Notes: Optional (Clustering of 2+ Yate HSS)

Geo redundant

Supported

Notes: Clustering mode

AUC included

Supported

AUC: 2G - COMP128-1,2 or 3

Supported

AUC: 3G / 4G MILENAGE

Supported

Ericsson IOT

Possible

ETSI SS7

Supported

ANSI SS7

Supported

SIGTRAN

Supported

Standalone HW diployment

Supported

Network elements we could provide
GGSN/PGW Yes
HLR/HSS/AuC Yes
ePDG No
PCRF/SPR Yes
GMSC Yes
MGCF Only MGCP
SMSC Yes
USSD Gateway Yes
IN CAMEL only
OCS No
AAA Yes, 3rdparty
IMS Yes
LIG No

Notes: RADIUS secondary PAP/CHAP authentication from PGW/GGSN

Can you provide a full BSS solution?

No

Can you provide a full OSS solution?

Only for our equipment

Supported access tehnologies
2G
3G
4G
Other: WLAN EAP - SIP, EAP - AKA

Notes: RADIUS Authentication to HSS/HLR

Can you provide an M2M Management and Control platform?

We can add integration of a 3rdparty

Do your network elements support APIs for provisioning/configuration/reporting at node level and subscriber level?

Yes - JSON/HTTP

Can your system –by means of an API - interrogate the device’s IMEI at any point in time for both CS only (SMS) and PS services?

Yes

Can your system detect a change in the IMSI-IMEI pair for CS only attached devices and PS only attached devices and both?

Yes

Notes: Using HTTP REST hook

Can you provide a Provisioning Orchestration platform which would guarantee synchronization between all the MVNE’s subscriber databases –HSS, HLR, AuC, AAA, SPR, etc.-?

Yes

Can your system limit the maximum data throughput [Mbps], GTP Sessions/s, Location Updates/s, SMSs/s and APIs per Enterprise and per MNO?

No

Do you support operational / management GUI for all the network elements provided in your solution?

Only for our equipments

What are MSRNS?

MO calls already start with MSISDN as Calling Party Number (A-number) and generally do not require any changes.

Only in the case of multi-MSISDN can home routing be required using CAMEL to rewrite the A-number to the desired one.
A MVNO never has MSRNs because it does not have MSCs to which MT calls should be routed.
It may instead have various other types of numbers for landing or services.
If it is MNO then it will have its own MSRNs which if it receives inbound roamers it will communicate to others under the conditions below.
If it does not have inbound roamers then the calls to MSRN will come only from their own GMSC and the rules are internal.
A MNO can tell you its own MSRN range, if those numbers are inaccessible from normal telephony and / or may require special routing.
It is common for an MNO to allocate special calling routes for:
MSRNs, possibly each MSC with its range and route (so that the MNO does not have to route between them, to get there from the first place)
MO calls that are home routed by local rules set by the MNO
Separate Billing - Many billing platforms require separate physical trunks or addresses to separate MVNO / local roaming from interconnect billing

Definitions:
Local / national roaming = the MVNO subscriber is in the MNO network with which he has a contract
Roaming (generic / international) = the MVNO subscriber is in a different network than the MNO with which he has a national contract
Interconnect = call between different networks (A and B are not subscriptions of the same operator) regardless of roaming

What are the supported operating systems by Yate?

YateBTS products can be installed on the following Linux distributions: Mageia, CentOS and Fedora.
For our clients we recommend: Mageia 7 as it has a newer kernel than CentOS 7.
These three distributions use the same file format .rpm for the packages.
RPMs are often collected centrally in one or more repositories on the internet. Most sites have their own RPM repositories which may either act as local mirrors of such internet repositories or be locally maintained collections of useful RPMs.
urpmi (Mageia), yum (CentOS) and dnf (Fedora and other RPM-based distros) are package management tools used for installing, removing, updating and querying software packages of local or remote (networked) media.
Package management tools attempt to solve issues which might be cause by dependencies, software compilation from source code, wrongful placement of common installation and configuration files, distribution of software with bugs. And, thus, developers attempt to increase the overall quality and coherence of a Linux-based operating system
For example, when you want to install yate-smsc. The package management tool queries the Yate repository in search for the full name of the package which might be something like: yate-smsc-1.3-1_r5240_r5342_prot.mga7.rpm
The package management tool will carry out any dependencies and it will set every file contained by the rpm package in the appropriate location without the intervention of the user.
To see the contents which have been installed by yate-smsc package use the following command:
rpm -q yate-smsc

The YateHSS/HLR price - what does it represents?

YateHLR/HSS price on the website is for the software license.
We can also deliver a hardware solution with the software already installed

How much is the support going to cost me?

All our products come with 6 months of FREE support. After that is a 10% a year based on the acquired products.

How many GTP sessions your PGW supports?

On a Ethernet link of 40Gb/s, maximum IPv4 useful data will be 38,4 Gb/s and if IPv6 is used the maximum will be 37,88 Gb/s.

How can I start an MVNO?

We have worldwide MVNOs as clients. The process might be long and needs plenty documentation, so we build up a page to give you a big picture: https://yatebts.com/solutions_and_technology/how-to-become-a-full-mvno/

If I want just the PGW from the UCN, do I get a discount?

We have public pricing and sell the entire license. The price is for all the features and you will get all of them, but can use only some components of it, depending on your needs.

How can I become a reseller?

We have a reseller program and are always looking for new partnerships. You can send us an email on this subject at: sales@ss7ware.com or contact@ss7ware.com and we will provide you the contracts.

Few benefits our resellers have are:
Free shipping to any destination worlwide
Fixed prices, but we do provide discounts & rebates to our reseller
Dropshipping – no need to buy stock

What billing interface do you support?

We do support Diameter RO interface

What OSS / BSS do you support?

We don't do BSS/OSS at all. We can adapt to the provider of your choice, or we can introduce you to two vendors that we have completed interoperability tests with.

Do you have existing MVNO customer?

Yes, we have operational MVNOs in many countries are using our solutions. Few of them are in: Spain, Germany, France, Czech Republic, Denmark, Netherlands etc.

These are 3 successful stories and you can also find testimonials from the clients that are using YateBTS software: https://yatebts.com/solutions_and_technology/best-mvno-list-successful-stories/

How are error handled in YateSMSC?

The errors are handled in three ways:
Errors authoritatively unrecoverable - no retries are attempted, the SMS fails immediately
Examples: unknownSubscriber, callBarred, teleserviceNotProvisioned, equipmentProtocolError, equipmentNotSM-Equipped
Errors caused by temporary subscriber or memory unavailability - they have their own large retry interval and immediate retry on notification
Examples: absentSubscriber, unidentifiedSubscriber, memoryCapacityExceeded, sc-Congestion, sm-DeliveryFailure
Any other errors - it is unlikely the message will pass through but we retry anyway
Example:
If the firewall responds with an incorrect error (for example, “Invoke-IncorrectParameter”), it will fall in the 3rd case, causing a few retries followed by message drop.
In this scenario, the problem would be in the SMS User Data.
A SMS firewall in the visited MSC detects an incorrect User Data Header and returns this unexpected error (the standard has no support for firewalls).
If there wasn’t any firewall, the phone would have rejected the message with equipmentProtocolError telling us that it will never accept it because it is malformed.

Which LTE bands do you support?

We support all FDD/TDD bands except for LTE-U bands.
We do support the following bands for LabKit : 1,2,3,4,5,7,8,11,12,13,14,17,18,19,20,21,24,25,26,28,30,31,34,37,38,39,40,41,42,44,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,65,66,68,70,71,72,73,74,85,87,88

We support the following bands for SatSite
1,2,3,4,5,7,8,11,12,13,14,17,18,19,20,21,24,25,26,28,30,34,37,38,39,40,41,42,44,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,65,66,68,70,71,74,85
We do NOT support the following bands: 29, 32, 67,69, 75,76.
You can learn more about LTE frequency bands at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_frequency_bands

How do I start a LTE network?

You can start a LTE network by buying a LTE LabKit, pluging it in, powering it ON and registering it on Test Network

Does your free HostedCore allow us to set up MCC+MCN and to change them frequently?

- In any GSM mode, you don't need allowance from the CORE Network to use a PLMN-id (MCC/MNC)
- Only in LTE enb mode, when LabKit is working as an eNodeB you need that MME entity allows PLMN-ID broadcasted by the eNodeB equipment.

So, if you want to test different MCC/MNC in 4G LTE mode, please :
- Give the list of the MCC-MCN you want to use for the next 2 weeks (in order to add it in the Hosted Core as permitted PLMN-IDs)
Ex: 00101, 22201-22210, etc. (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Network_Codes_in_ITU_region_2xx_(Europe) )
- This way you won't need to buy a MiniCore, yet*
* I say yet because in time you might want to do tests with VoLTE, Voice over WiFi, or USSD

Straight answer:
- Hosted Core does not allow access to the customer to change the allowed MCC/MNC used in MME, but we can add a list of PLMNs you need there.
- Then you can change the PLMN-IDs from the eNodeB, and broadcast whatever you want. (and if the HostedCore supports it, eNodeB will connect, then UEs will connect)

Do you support Cell Broadcast in your telecom solution?

We support Cell Broadcast in LabKits only in GSM modes. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_Broadcast )

We support Cell Broadcast in YateBTS (working modes: 2G NiPC, 2G roaming, 2G dataroam).
To activate the service you have to log in into LMI (Local Management Interface).
These types of messages imply more than just the RAN component (BTS/ENB)
Usually there is another application that pushes messages to the RAN component and RAN component pushes messages to the phones.
Phone must be set up to receive cell broadcast (emergency) messages. Some phones have this directly build in in the firmware.
Phones have 1000 channels (from 0 to 999) - named CMBR (Cell Broadcast Message Range)
SIMs also have a memory zone that can old up to 5 broadcast channels.
These codes differ for each country/continent.
For example Romania is using only 5 codes for Cell Broadcast (service named: RoAlert).
Test Cell Broadcast with LTE LabKit now!

Does the Yate Core have an estimated Uptime?

Core network uptime is usually reflected by the Linux server holding the Core network software.
As our Yate products are software products, we have servers/VMs online for years now.
Yate software running on these servers was upgraded during time. (is a normal behavior)
Downtime for an upgrade procedure usually it is approx 60 seconds, but may vary to less on certain equipment.

Linux bare-metal server not booting, what now?

Please boot the server in Legacy/BIOS mode with a Mageia/CentOS or a recovery stick. Then use the "Memory Test" option and find out if a hardware problem appeared on that server. Usually physical memory (RAM) might crash or hard disk drive (HDD) or solid-state drive (SSD). Replace the broken components or remove it if the system allows it and turn on the server.

Do you support unattended upgrades for Yate Products?

Yes, we support unattended-upgrades / scheduled upgrades for our Yate Products and it can be done very easily from YateMMI.

To schedule unattended upgrades:
- Access YateMMI (Mobile Management Interface)
- Click on Equipment
- Select Schedule Update (bottom left corner), this opens a new browser window, here enter Start Time (the time when updates start on the selected nodes) and Gap Time (the time between server updates).

The purpose of unattended upgrades is to install the latest Yate Products updates automatically and unattended.

How can I enable Personal Hotspot on my iOS device attached to YateUCN?

Answer:
To enable the Personal Hotspot on your iOS device you need to configure the Hotspot APN (Access Point Name) by following the next steps:
- Please go to Settings > Cellular/Mobile Data > Mobile Data Network.
- Please tap on APN in the Personal Hotspot section and type your APN - leave username and password fields empty.
Your device is now configured for Personal Hotspot (also known as tethering).
Whenever you want to use it you can go to Settings > Mobile Data > Personal Hotspot, turn Personal Hotspot ON and follow on screen instructions.
Personal Hotspot on your iOS device will provide internet access to other devices on Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or USB.

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